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Ok, I'm finally going to make the time to sit here and write about the trip and the job. Only a week late mind you!!! :)

The trip was amazing- it was really hard to leave Jack (tears all around) but once we left, I didn't worry about him for a single second.

We took the bus to Chicago (awesome idea, nobody had to drive!!) and our flight left for Amsterdam at 4:30. How exciting to be sitting at a gate that says "Amsterdam" as the destination, and not somewhere totally boring!! We got into Amsterdam at 7:30 in the morning their time, we were feeling pretty good at that point. We didn't really sleep on the plane and it was only 11 or 12 at night for us anyway. Of course since we got there so early, our hotel room wasn't ready, so we walked all around Amsterdam and went through the Anne Frank house. First of all, Amsterdam is BEAUTIFUL!!! The architecture, the cobble stone/brick streets, the canals, the bikes, everything- just truly beautiful. The Anne Frank house was very interesting. Her dad chose to not have any furniture in the house- but the wallpaper and the pictures Anne put up on her wall were still there. It was such a surreal feeling to be standing in the actual place where her diary was written. At the end of the tour, you even get to see her real diary which I thought was really neat.

We walked around a little more and stopped for some breakfast. By this time we were feeling really tired and even a little dizzy. Our hotel room was finally ready, so we slept for 5 hours and then headed out for dinner. We spent the rest of our time in Amsterdam walking everywhere. We saw the Van Gogh museum, the Reijks (sooo not spelling that right!) museum, the Heineken museum (they give you lots of beer to drink!) and the floating flower markets. My favorite thing was probably the flower markets. They had varieties of tulips that were just amazing!

We did take several walks through the Red Light District. Talk about mind boggling! These young girls are just posing in the windows of these buildings wearing next to nothing, trying to entice you inside. Ick! It was very interesting to see though. We stopped in a coffee shop my dad knew about....

The flight to Nairobi wasn't bad. It's only an hour ahead of Amsterdam, so no jet lag at all. As soon as we got there it felt as if we really were in another world. The luggage took FOREVER to arrive and the line for customs took forever. My mom, sister, and our driver (a friend of my mom's from a safari company) were there to pick us up. We loaded into an old Toyota 9 passenger van and the adventure began! Imagine driving 50+ miles an hour down a street riddled with random pot holes, no street lights, no paint on the road marking the center line, and diesel fumes in the air. Holy crap we're not at home anymore!!!

The driver took us to Mum Anne's house. She's a mum from the orphanage my mom has gotten to know really well. She's practically family! To get to their house, you have to wait for them to come down this grassy/rocky road to unlock the gate. There is a lot of crime in Kenya, so everyone takes lots of precautions. They call their home the "compound". It's surrounded by a wall/fence, with another locked fence to pass through to actually get to their house. The house was pretty big, 5 bedrooms, one bathroom (no running hot water), a good size kitchen, and 2 living room areas. They were just the most gracious hosts I've ever known. So happy to have us there, and experience their lives. Mum Anne lives there with her 2 sisters, Carol and Grace. Also living there is Mum Anne's brother, Caleb, her niece Cynthia, and Carol's daughter- Gaia.

It's amazing how quickly you can adjust to different living conditions. I took a few bucket showers at their house. Basically you heat 2 big pots of water on the stove, pour them into a big bucket next to the tub. Add some cold water if it's too hot, then pour the water over yourself when you're done shampooing your hair, etc. Not quite the hot 15 minute shower I'm used to at home, but totally fine! You really can't drink the tap water there either, so we had bottled water to use when brushing our teeth and for drinking.

Our first visit to the orphanage my mom lives at was really cool. It was in a much more urban area than I thought it would be. Again, to get in you have to pass through a locked and guarded gate. The cottages where the kids live were great, cinder block homes, running water, electricity, small, but cozy. The kids have a great playground area in the middle which is fun. All of the kids in Cottage D (where my mom spends most of her time) were happy to see us- it was so fun to finally match the faces with the names I've been hearing about for so long! The kids were so full of energy, just so sad to think that they're living there because of being orphaned and HIV+

2 kids I met that I'll never forget. Ken. My mom has mentioned him on her blog many times. He's 12. Weighs less than Jack. When you pick him up and hold him on your hip (and I'm being completely truthful here) you can feel his thigh bones, his hip bones, his tailbone, all of his ribs, his vertebrae, etc. He is just so incredibly, impossibly, heartbreakingly thin. I wasn't quite prepared for how it would FEEL to hold him. He's 12 for god's sake! He should be playing soccer and wrestling the little kids. Not lying in bed most of the time probably in pain. Think how painful it must be to be that malnourished. He gets fed a million calories a day, but it takes forever for your body to recover from that.

The second kid I'll never forget. Anthony. He's 6 months old. He has the eyes of a 6 month old, bright, always checking things out, curious. His body however... and again, totally truthful, the body of a premature baby. I could run my thumb and forefinger (held together to make a ring) all the way up his leg and never touch him. He was that small. Can't sit up, can't roll over, can't hold a rattle. His hands were still in the fist position of a newborn. I held him and snuggled him and even got him to smile a few times. I told him I loved him. He needed to hear that, his mom abandoned him at the hospital 3 months ago.

The daycare center. My mom volunteers there every week or so. Her friend Caroline started the daycare center in one of the slums of Nairobi so that maybe the mothers and fathers could find some work- and NOT LEAVE THEIR CHILDREN LOCKED IN THEIR SHACKS FOR 8 HOURS A DAY. Seriously. That's what the alternative is. You have to work, nobody can babysit, so leave your kids locked at home alone. At least they might be safe that way. Amazing. So Caroline starts this daycare, there are so many people who want to leave their kids with her, they leave them at the gate to the daycare and walk away. On the way to the daycare center, Caroline drives us through a part of the slum where her kids come from. Everything you have ever seen in pictures or on tv... in real life. Kids playing on piles of garbage. Runny noses, coughs, dirty clothes, no shoes, babies on their mother's backs, people just trying to survive. Oh the tears when I saw that for myself. And Jack has a whole ROOM full of toys. How is that possible?
We came upon this mother who had a 3 year old daughter and a baby on her back. The little girl looked really sick. Caroline told her to come to the daycare so my mom could examine the little girl.

We get to the daycare, the kids are all outside playing. With 6 tires. They are dressed in crazy mismatched outfits, some with shoes and socks, some barefoot. All completely overdressed for the weather (something my mom said everybody is). Runny noses, coughs, big curious eyes. One little kid takes one look at all of us Mizungus (white people) and starts crying hysterically! We eventually win them over and they push to sit on our laps, play with our hair (how strange!)and be held and cuddled. I had brought 2 huge suitcases filled with donated clothing, socks, blankets, jackets, shoes, toys, and books that some moms from my moms group donated. I also bought a johnson and johnson first aid kit from target and a digital thermometer. Caroline was so incredibly grateful for everything. Her first aid kit had been a role of gauze. That's it.

The mom with the sick little girl and baby on her back arrive, they had walked the entire way to the daycare. My mom thinks the little girl has pneumonia (even though she's just a nurse, over there, she can give out medicine). My mom gives her an antibiotic and Caroline explains to the mom how to give it to her. Then Caroline reaches into my suitcase and pulls out a pair of socks and a pair of pink and white tennis shoes. The little girl (about 3 or 4 years old) had been walking through the slum with no shoes or socks. Barefoot. All the time. I will never forget her face. I wonder if she's still alive.

The safari. We took a 3 day safari thanks to a discounted package my mom got from a safari company she knows of. We took another 9 passenger Toyota van to the Masai Mara. It took about 6 hours to drive there. Stopped by the Kenyan police on the highway. We had been speeding. No radar gun in sight, the driver slips the police officer 1,000 shillings. The Kenyan police are so corrupt. We continue on through the Great Rift Valley. Where life began thousands and thousands and thousands of years ago!!! Couldn't believe we were there!!!

The road. Oh my god, the road. Huge potholes, everywhere. Swerving to the side, the middle, the other side just to avoid them. It was like one of the 4 wheel drive trips you pay to go on in Colorado. It was that bad. The road to one of the biggest tourist attractions in Kenya looks like a construction site gone wrong. That's the government for you! We got to the lodge- it was amazing! Beautiful and serene. A nice change from the diesel and chaos of the city. Our rooms were so cool- glass doors (a sign on the wall, keep the door shut, monkeys are smart and will come in looking for food!!!!). Mosquito netting over the bed. We went on 4 game drives. The top of our van pops up and you can stand while the driver drives you all over. We saw everything!
lions
a leopard!!
giraffes
elephants
antelope
impalas
monkeys
hippos
hyenas
and more and more!
All out in the wild, no fences, no cages, it was so freaking cool! We even came upon a whole pride of lions feasting on a water buffalo. Some were still eating, others were lying on their backs in the grass too full and satisfied to move!! They were just feet away from us! It was cool! We saw whole families of elephants, hippos swimming in a huge watering hole, jackals running in the road ahead of us. It was just the coolest thing ever.

The house on the Indian Ocean. My mom met somebody working for the US government, but living in Nairobi who offered us his beach house while we were visiting. We took one of the cottage D kids, John, and flew to a town called Kilifi. We surprised John with the trip, pulled him into the director of the orphanage's office, he thought he was in big trouble- and then we told him he was going on an airplane to the ocean that afternoon! He was shocked! He was very scared on the plane, told my mom there wasn't enough air to breathe. As soon as we took off, we gave him my mom's ipod and he relaxed and sang Baby Baluga (a Raffi song) at the top of his lungs!

We took a cab an hour to the house- again, the highway riddled with potholes, slow going. We pull up to a gate, the staff lets us in... the house is AMAZING! Not fancy pants super elegant, but open and airy, and comfortable, and absolutely amazing. 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms (no running hot water), an open veranda with chairs and a tall lounging bed, a beautiful swimming pool, a steep hill at the end that leads directly to the ocean!!! We walked down the hill and were about to climb the little sand dune when John turns to me and says, "Mum Elizabeth, this is called what?" I said, "It's called sand, John, you can walk in it, it's ok." He had never seen white sand like that before.

The ocean was beautiful. I can't believe I've seen the Indian Ocean. We spent the next 3 days reading, lounging, lying in the hammock, eating our meals next to the swimming pool, trying to enjoy having a staff of 3 looking after us (god was that weird!!!). We went into town and bought some souvenirs. We took walks on the beach. Played Uno and Yahtzee. It was just perfect.

We went into downtown Nairobi one afternoon. We didn't see another white person the whole time. A new experience. We walked through the city market- the meat area. I thought I would throw up, the smell, oh my god. And that's where people buy their meat and fish! Horrendous. We shopped some more, ate pizza (it was awesome!) and walked around.

Life is just so hard there. To go anywhere safely, you have to call a cab, or take a Citi Hoppa (a non scheduled bus system). We took a Matatu (a 14 passenger crammed full van that has certain stops) and 2 guys tried to scam us. When these guys got on, one sat next to me, the other next to my mom. All of a sudden they tell us there's a police check, so they're reaching over us trying to help us buckle our seat belts. I think that it seems odd... but I don't want to be the person who's suspicious of everyone. I notice my money pack thing that we've all been wearing is unvelcroed a little bit, I think that's weird and close it and move it over a bit. We get off the Matatu, and my mom realizes her cell phone is gone. She's incredibly mad, so upset she got conned and she's lived here since January. Nothing is missing from my stuff, I caught it just in time. Could have been my camera and passport. They were professionals obviously, they had a plan and we fell for it. I guess you have to be suspicious of everyone. Sad, but true. We got my mom a new phone, after about a million different stores- nothing is easy.

We were very glad to get home. Life is just so hard there. I see why my mom loves the kids, but I just don't think I could live there forever. It was an amazing trip, we'll never forget it. Jack was fine the whole time, he only cried when we called and they put us on speaker phone! He was sleeping when we got home, at then end of his nap. We woke him up- he cried a bit and then hugs and kisses all around. The next morning his grandma got him up (thank god she had the monitor all night, we didn't hear him once and he got up twice crying!) and he ran into our room and gave us this look like "oh, that's right! you're home!!!"

Pictures will be tomorrow's chore! And details about the job!